When, on the contrary, the action is performed, the pleasure which results from it, if we have acted rightly, is called moral satisfaction; and if we have acted wrong, remorse, or repentance.
Remorse is a burning pain; and, as the word indicates, the bite that tortures the heart after a culpable action. This pain may be found among the very ones who have no regret for having done wrong, and who would do it over again if they could. It has therefore no moral character whatsoever, and must be considered as a sort of punishment attached to crime by nature herself. “Malice,” said Montaigne, “poisons itself with its own venom. Vice leaves, like an ulcer in the flesh, a repentance in the soul, which, ever scratching itself, draws ever fresh blood.”
Repentance is also, like remorse, a pain which comes from a bad action; but there is coupled with it the regret of having done it, and the wish, if not the firm resolution, never to do it again.
Repentance is a sadness of the soul; remorse is a torture and an anguish. Repentance is almost a virtue; remorse is a punishment; but the one leads to the other, and he who feels no remorse can feel no repentance.
Moral satisfaction, on the contrary, is a peace, a joy, a keen and delicious emotion born from the feeling of having accomplished one’s duty. It is the only remuneration that never fails us.
Among the sentiments called forth by our own actions, there are two which are the natural auxiliaries of the moral sentiment: they are the sentiment of honor and the sentiment of shame.
Honor is a principle which incites us to perform actions which raise us in our own eyes, and to avoid such as would lower us.
Shame is the opposite of honor; it is what we feel when we have done something that lowers us not only in the eyes of others, but in our own. All remorse is more or less accompanied by shame; yet the shame is greater for actions which indicate a certain baseness of soul. For instance, one will feel more ashamed of having told a falsehood than for having struck a person; for having cheated in gambling than for having fought a duel.
Honor and shame are therefore not always an exact measure of the moral value of actions; for be they but brilliant, man will soon rid himself of all shame; this happens, for instance, in cases of prodigality, licentiousness, ambition. One does wrong, not without remorse, but with a certain ostentation which stifles the feelings of shame.
Let us pass now to the sentiments which the actions of others excite in us.